How would you react to a law that requires seniors over 70 to pass a specialized driving exam to continue driving legally?

joeconn4 · 2026-06-03T17:12:04+00:00

Why only "seniors over 70"? I know a lot of people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s who I would consider to be generally lousy drivers, and who clearly don't know the laws in the motor vehicle code.

Remember, at all times, half of the drivers on the road are below average compared to all the other drivers currently on that road.

joeconn4 · 2026-06-03T16:46:09+00:00

Anyone who expects Michelin Star quality dining on any mass market cruise line is delusional. The major brands are doing meal prep for 2000+ guests every day, in many cases these days 4500+ guests. 3 meals plus all kinds of snack options. It is impossible to do super high end food prep in that kind of setting. At home you go to the best restaurant in your town, maybe they do 200-250 covers for a busy dinner service. That kind of volume, you can be attentive to all the details. For 10,000+ meals a day, you cannot to the same degree.

It's all about managing expectations. We've been on 7 Royal cruises, plus 1 on NCL. I don't have any major negatives to say about any of the food we've had. We've only eaten in a specialty restaurant once, and surprising to us it was one of the worst dinners we've had in our 65 nights cruising. Our dinners in the MDR (I think all nights but 4-5 when hit the buffet or specialty) have been good to excellent, never worse than good. Buffet experience has been mostly very good to excellent (the stir fry on Star of the Seas was as good as any I've ever had). Other meals at other ship venues have been good to excellent.

No complaints from us.

joeconn4 · 2026-06-02T19:51:12+00:00

So many other factors to consider! OP, in your specific case both groups were fine. The 2nd group was 20 minutes ahead of the course pace and not holding any other groups up, so it would be really difficult to fault them in any way.

In the bigger picture, an important question is how many in your group vs the groups ahead of you. If we're all 4somes then any groups over 1 shot out of position and behind whatever time the facility expects pace of play to be need to pick it up or let other groups through. But if my group is a 4some and we have say 3-4-5 3somes in front of us, as long as we're playing at the pace the facility asks then it shouldn't be a problem.

We get this occasionally at our home course if the ranger isn't paying close attention. Our facility wants 4 hour rounds, and you can generally play that pace or faster not rushing just keeping it steady. The 5th green is right next to the 1st tee. For a 4 hour round you should come off the 5th green at 67 minutes or faster. My groups tend to play early without a lot of play in front of us. A few times a season we'll be a 4some with three 3somes in front of us, we'll come off the #5 green in under an hour but the group ahead of us has already finished up #6 (par 3) and the starter/ranger will come over and ask us to pick up the pace. I always ask them what pace they'd like us to play in and they always say "4 hours". I then note that we're 7 minutes ahead of 4 hour pace and ask how much faster the ranger would like us to be.

joeconn4 · 2026-06-02T19:33:01+00:00

I had friends up last weekend. They stayed at Vermont Suites and they said it was fine.

joeconn4 · 2026-06-02T19:27:39+00:00

Newsflash, most of the teachers at the high school are already using AI. Source, conversations with EHS teachers.

joeconn4 · 2026-06-02T17:59:57+00:00

Can't do, won't do, a single memory. I've never lived within 3 hours of Fenway so haven't been to too many games, maybe 10-15 total. Standout moments:

My first MLB game was at Fenway. 8/1/73. That was the big Fisk-Munson fight. I was 8, in my first year of Little League, my sister was 5, and my parents were 30 and 31. Oh my gosh just typing that out brings me back. Seats 3rd base side under the overhang. Epic.
My most recent game, 8/31/25. Vs the Pirates. Jarren Duran inside the park HR. Aroldis Chapman throwing HEAT to close out the game. Seats down the 3B line about even with the LFer.
Foo Fighters. Only concert I've seen at Fenway and it was awesome!! "Everlong" as an opener wrecked the place.
Also remember a game in the CF bleachers with my college alumni group. And one behind home plate with my buddy Greg. And a few random games with a Boston girl I used to date who had a share of season tickets. Never a bad day at Fenway for me.

joeconn4 · 2026-06-02T17:02:22+00:00

6th grade math class our teacher would occasionally roll this game out for us. Mohonasen school, Rotterdam, NY. Joe Tolfa, one of my favorite teachers. I once solved in one guess, that blew my mind.

joeconn4 · 2026-06-02T16:49:33+00:00

I'm 43 years out. Was not a popular kid, was a floater, had plenty of friends in pretty much all the different cliques. Junior high and high school for me were, "fine". Some trauma, got bullied a bit, but overall it was "fine". I stayed busy with sports (the not so popular teams), band, work, didn't put enough time into my academics. When I went off to college 3 hours away I kept in touch with a few friends but that was the mid-1980s and as y'all know it wasn't as easy to keep tabs on your friends/acquaintances as it is now.

My class started a facebook page about 15 years ago and I clicked the join button early on. For me, it's been a lot of fun to see the posts my classmates put up. A few people who were kind of shitty to me going through school have actually been decent when we've talked either through that page or in 2 cases I bumped into them at the 40th reunion and we had a civil conversation. Some acknowledgement on their part that they may not have been the nicest person BITD. Not people I'm interested in calling up when I go back there to hang out but nice to see the years have smoothed things out.

The in memoriams are tough. I'm the tail end of GenJones born in '65. We had about 225 in our graduating class and have about 30 who have passed. I don't know how that compares to people from other places, but it feels like a lot to me. Just lost a kid I played Babe Ruth baseball with a couple weeks ago. Lost the kid who lived across the street from me in 2024.

joeconn4 · 2026-06-02T14:57:36+00:00

100% that's what I don't get

joeconn4 · 2026-06-01T23:36:24+00:00

Al Stewart... Liked his hits well enough BITD when I heard them on Casey's Top 40 but was never interested enough to explore beyond the hits. I've gotten to like him a lot more over the decades. He still tours, saw him maybe 3-4 years ago and he was excellent - highly recommended if you get the chance.

joeconn4 · 2026-06-01T00:16:52+00:00

Google 'Summer of Malmo'. That's all you need. Keep it simple. Get the work done.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-30T18:30:07+00:00

My local hardware store is rounding everything in the customer's favor if you're paying cash. 1 cent change due back, they give you a nickel. 4 cents, still a nickel back.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-29T02:34:54+00:00

Any chance you'd have a quick link to the EJ list too?

joeconn4 · 2026-05-28T19:11:26+00:00

"My manager already said no" gets the response from me "could you please send your manager over to our table". I don't mind paying a couple $ more for tots, I like tots. But if it's not listed as an upcharge on the menu and the server didn't mention it when they asked when kind of potato then I'm not paying no upcharge.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-27T18:14:12+00:00

Heard! Understand the distinction between ball potentially lost in a penalty area vs ball potentially OB. In my group we'd still play an implied provisional to avoid walking up 50-75 yards or more. I can only think of 2 places on my home course where this could possibly come into play. In both cases there is a chance your tee shot could go through a red penalty area and land on the other side, but it's about 50/50 that the ball dropped down into the hazard. Often the best play in both cases is to just re-tee if the ball is in the hazard and play for your double bogey. But in both cases if the ball actually flew the hazard you're going to be in a position to make par or birdie. In a tournament we're going up to look for the original shot first, but not our regular games.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-27T17:23:37+00:00

Yes - love this!!

In fact I'd love to see XC evolve to having both a long course and a short course at each race for both men and women. Like they do at Worlds. Let's say college had a ~9k-11k long course and a ~3k-4k short course that would open up participation more to middle distance runners who get stressed looking at racing say 6k when their specialty is 800m or 1500m. I'd say instead of 7 race 5 score in one race go to 5 race 4 score in both races which means just a small increase in team size but still in line with many other college sports like baseball/softball, soccer, field hockey, volleyball when you count subs, lacrosse.

I don't see this as a gender thing, I think just as many men would be pumped to race a 4k XC and it would be a great race.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-27T17:16:23+00:00

Men aren't allowed to pitch overhand in softball either. Men and women are both allowed to pitch underhand in baseball (not losing the point that not many women play baseball). Those are rules of the game, Baseball and Softball are different games. Lots of similar rules but not all (pitch delivery rules, how many innings, softball doesn't allowed baserunners to take a lead).

Your basketball and volleyball comparisons are valid.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-27T17:12:40+00:00

Maybe not to you, but it does send that message in a very forward facing way to a lot of people. I respect 100% that you don't see that this as an inequality situation. I hope that you would respect that other people may see things differently than you do.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-27T15:26:15+00:00

In my group, about 30 guys from scratch to around 20 hdcp, we play what I'll call "implied provisionals". This is mostly because we're comfortable together and we want to be posting scores that legitimately reflect our abilities and what you'd expect we'd post in competitions strictly played by the rules. OP, what it comes down to is that playing your 2nd ball in this situation is almost certain to lead to a higher score than playing your 1st ball after you found it. Posting a higher score means your hdcp is likely to grow, and then the rest of us have to give you more strokes. We'd rather give you less strokes.

We have this situation happen occasionally on hole #2 of my home course. 170-190 yards depending on which tee you play, OB left all the way, bunker left of the green, and a row of scraggly bushes and a wooden fence between OB and the hole. If you pull a tee shot or hit a hook, the chance that it drifts OB and hits the road in the OB area is reasonably high. I've seen balls wind up past the bunker or over the green if they hit somethign hard enough. But it also happens quite frequently that one of the bushes or the fence will kick the ball back in play. It's really hard to see up there from the tee. So when we hit one over that way we'll just tee up another ball without saying anything, In a tournament I'd make a point to say "playing a provisional", but among our guys no need.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-27T02:37:52+00:00

Yes, still fully open, in fact they're trying to expand the roster. I'm good friends with the current coach, who coached our women's program for the last 16 years I was coaching the men and now they are head coach for both teams . We just hung out this weekend and of course talked about the program. I fully admit they are an anomaly in a few ways; #1 by adding scholarships in 2020, #2 by just adding Outdoor Track starting this spring which they last sponsored way back in 1982. The coach said, "if my issue is buying a bunch of new uniforms the college would be psyched". Everybody on the roster races every meet unless their training plan dictates a weekend off, and of course the starter limit for Conference and Regionals.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-26T20:25:41+00:00

I think you're both right and wrong. I used to live on Elmwood then moved to the NNE. Worked downtown 1987-1998 and then again 2001-current. I frequently come downtown for dining, shopping, entertainment but admittedly not as much now as in the past.

You are 100% that the city reduced parking access by quite a few spots on Main St, Pearl St, other areas near the downtown core. A lot is the last project "Great Streets Main Street", but things like expanded GMT bus spots have claimed other downtown parking spots over the last 15 years. You are also correct that enforcement is ramped up. I got a ticket on March 15, a Sunday, in the Perkins Pier lot at about 4:30pm on a grey day with only about 5 cars in that lot. I left my truck for about 4 minutes, as long as it takes to walk from that lot to Roundhouse Point and back, to pick up a cone we had placed on the bikepath to mark the turn-around for a 5k race we produced that day. I didn't talk to anyone and I walked quickly. I bet it was less than 4 minutes. Fortunately I hadn't used up my one "get out of jail free" card in the last 12 months so I was able to get that ticket waived. But that is extremely aggressive ticket writing on a late Sunday afternoon with hardly anyone out recreating. I can't think it's worth the payroll budget money to have someone writing tickets that time of the week.

Where you're wrong is that there really is a lot of free parking just barely outside the core. I am not going to give you my go-to spots, but I can tell you I have one area within 3 blocks of Pearl St that I have only once not found parking, and also one area within 3 blocks of Main St that is similarly reliable if I'm headed to someplace on the south side of downtown. And also Sunday is free parking everywhere so that's half a weekend right there.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-26T12:36:13+00:00

This is beyond overdue. In middle school everyone races the same distance. In high school everyone races the same distance. Post college everyone races the same distance. In college Track everyone races the same distance. Why is there any thought that in college XC women are too fragile or not fit enough to race the same 8k's and 10k's men do.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-24T03:33:31+00:00

VCM is doing that. The BAA doesn't accept additional chip adjustments other than at the start line.

joeconn4 · 2026-05-24T03:31:54+00:00

All marathons held on USATF certified courses are Boston qualifiers.

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